


Wraith

by charbax



Category: Battleborn (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Violence Warning, and also living off the land, animal disembowlment warning, basically all the fun stuff that comes with being a being made from a failed sustainment :)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-25
Updated: 2016-12-25
Packaged: 2018-09-12 01:49:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9050338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/charbax/pseuds/charbax
Summary: The span of Galilea's self-imposed exile, from the moment she fled to Bliss, to being recruited into the Battleborn. Gift for Galil3a during the BBsecretsanta!!





	

**Author's Note:**

> I was Galil3a's secret santa (charmemes is just my other name), and they requested a free-for-all, so I went with the cryptid of bliss. Hope you enjoy Galil3a!!

Galilea was so close to the Jennerit Sustainment Engine, she could've touched it.

She gritted her teeth against the frustration and freezing cold. In response, phasal energy flared out in tendrils, but apart from darkening the snow, it did little else. At least she knew that there wasn't another soul around her for miles.

She hadn't been thinking since she fled from Ambra in the Sustainment room, nor when she reported the failure of her mission to the Red Observer, who had the nerve to suggest that Galilea _wanted_ to fail her 20-year long mission undercover. Emotion clashed with logic, and in the weakness her newfound half-state, she lashed out at the Observer. 

Now it landed her in this situation, stumbling away from her escape pod and with a bounty on her head, from both the Sisterhood and the Eldrid Observatory. Instinct piloted her body to find shelter, her mind void from all but thought to get out of the cold. Shelter, water, then food. Afterwards, she can figure out how to live out the rest of her days.

Another few minutes, and Galilea stumbled into the entrance to an Aztanti temple. The dragon maw could've been mistakened by any other cave opening, but Galilea had studied this proud culture. She knew there would have torches, caches, and most importantly, cover from the cold. The inside was dark, the chill still permeating the air, idols of old looming over her head. She could see the sneer of the Observers in their faces, judging her as she unbuckled the outermost armour and shook off the worst of the snow. She didn't want to see the void etched onto her skin like a terrible tattoo.

With any luck, anybody after her would be deterred by the frigid landscape and the hostile wildlife. Even then, Galilea could flee further into the depths, where the ancients had laden traps for intruders, but not for those of Helician Corps. For now, she was physically safe.

As for the...disease, however, it ate at her insides, like the void. It had cloaked her escape from the Eldrid and Jennerit, but now that there were no enemies, it ruptured under her skin, dissatisfied and restless. Galilea had to stop herself from opening the temple gates and venturing outside for an opponent.

_Soon,_ she reasoned. If she were to survive in this hellscape, then she must bide her time, as she had done in her failed operation.  _Soon, we will begin hunting._

The beast within her snarled, but withdrew. For now, she was in control. 

 

 

It turned out that the hunt was sooner than she thought.

It had not even been a day before Galilea heard the hum of Jennerit warships. Her hyper aware senses were already envisioning the bright crimson spilt upon the snow, of the life being drained underneath her fingertips as she had done to Observer Ebrys. Her body was already moving through the motions of preparation, strapping a shield and sheathing her sword. The darkness purred. It will feed soon enough.

Unlike the snowstorm from yesterday, the weather was clear, with sunlight turning the snow into an almost blinding white. Galilea shielded her eyes and let more than her sight pinpoint the ground troops. Mostly primal thralls, lead by a Beastmaster. A scouting party then, to either investigate the flight of the former Templar, or stake claim on Aztanti ground. They won't be fulfilling neither.

For the first time since that incident, Galilea let her control slip. Red filled her vision. It was like a supernova exploding within her, then the inevitable collapse of a star, leaving a black hole that drained anything in its vicinity. In this moment, it would be the Jennerit scum.

Galilea made sure none escaped her wrath, not even those who had fled after seeing their brethren's flesh shrivel away. By the time her vision cleared, the snow was bright red, and bodies littered the landing pad. The ship had long pulled away, no doubt to inform their superiors of what had transpired.

Fine. Let them come. Galilea would be ready to cut them all down.

She should feel satisfied. Joyous even, for driving away the would be invaders, and the prospect of more opponents. But seeing all bodies littering the landing pad, all she felt was hunger, the beast filled, not satisfied. More, more, it seemed to shriek. It wasn't sated from the filling of the Elder, nor these soldiers. How much more will it take before it was satisfied?

The Thrall's rations tasted like ash in her mouth.

 

 

Galilea had little time to grab the bare bones of possessions – much less any sort of time keeping devices - since fleeing the Codex. Instead, she measured time by the growth of the scalewolves and their young, prowling the frigid landscape like ghosts. Like her. She mostly left them alone, and they her.

Bears, on the other hand, were all too eager to pick fights when she even looked in their general direction. Claws and animal instinct were no match for sword and shield, and Galilea found herself in possession of a whole adult bear.

She set to work immediately. With an ancient knife found of the caches and resharpened, she cut away the skin in one piece, setting it aside to be cleaned later. It would make better bedding than the musty blankets she had found and used so far. The meat was carved off the bones and stored in a crate placed in the snow, just outside of the entrance of the cave. The bones were set next to an equal amount of wood for kindling, half and half, as she was taught, to make the fire burn brighter and for longer.

When not hunting, or sating the yearning cavern within her, or exploring the depths of the temple she now called her home, she meditated.

She tried concentrating on the simple things, like deciding whether to have bone marrow stew or braised meat from the bear she had killed earlier. It was inevitable, however, that her thoughts turned to her failures. Her home planet, her mission, her friend, her Order. Guilt beget guilt, a blackhole feeding itself from the dying star's core. At least, with self-exile, there would be no more failures for all but herself. And that has made all the difference.

Galilea reached for the mythstone, scavenged from one of her trips into the temple. The spoke lore that might've been recorded on it had been worn away by time, leaving it empty for her purpose.

Sometimes, it wasn't the constant vigilance, or even the darkness housed within in her body that was the hardest, but the constant loneliness. As long as she lived, so did the monster inside her. She began recording.

“Here, I record the confession of my crimes.”

 

 

She's got visitors. They're not her normal ones, like the scalepups bounding around playfully as their mother watches on, or the Jennerit troop who _still_ are adamant on setting colonies on the Bliss, but more humanoid, militaristic. The sight of the orderly lines and the barked orders sent an ache in her chest. Once upon a time, that was her in their fatigues, bracing the elements, laughing with her breathren, all marching to the same drum. When one of the soldiers turned in her direction, she melted into the darkness, away from the campfire. She could only wonder what their purpose was, but left it at that. If they left her alone, then she would extend the same courtesy.

It was not their last encounter. Days later, that very same group was locked in battle with more Jennerit Thrall. She was lucky it was nightfall, otherwise she would not have been able to engage the Thralls without the newcomers seeing her in her true form. In the dark, it would be easy to mistake the twisted bodies as a particularly gung-ho manoeuvre from one of their own. She slipped back into the darkness once the last Jennerit trooper was cut down.

Since then, Galilea didn't dare show more than an obscure figure before vanishing like mist. She still hunted down the Jennerit soldiers with relish, even when the darkness made her retch late at night. It was simply another passing event in her lone lifestyle.

At least, she thought it was, until she had returned from a recent extermination, blood still drying on her armour, to see a man standing right in front of her home.

The void flared up like wings in defense. She had defended her home from the Jennerit invaders, again and again, only to fight on another frontier. Was this the consequence of her failures, even decades after?

She knew her appearance unsettled others on a good day, and brought absolute terror to her enemies, but for some reason, the man looked more relieved than fearful.

"So the Wraith of Bliss _does_ exist."

Every snarled reply fell out of Galilea's head, her face contorting between confusion and suspicion. She settled for simmering fury and asked, "What do you want? How did you find me?" Her voice came out rough from disuse. It had been a very long time since she had used it for speaking, and not just for screaming damnation on her opponents.

"I followed the stories and the reported sightings until I saw a pattern. I came to see if you'd like a job." He said. "With your kill count, we're going to need all the help we can get."

Anger flared up. Who was he to assume her awful power and its reach? She was hardly keeping it in check. "And what makes you think that I would say yes?"

"Because I got a feeling that you want to protect your home too."

Home. Despite the freezing weather, and the constant rebuffs from the Jennerit soldiers, this was the closest to home Galilea has. _Too_. Just what was he facing that he would actively seek out Galilea - the former Arbiter of Being and failed infilitrator Templar of the Sustaining Mother, she added - for help?

She looked at him, slowly lowering her sword. He hadn't said he was offering her redemption, not exactly, but it sounded a lot like he was giving her a chance to prove she can succeed in this one thing. And if she had to keep using her half-sustainment to achieve it, so be it.

"So, are you with us?" He held out a hand. He still showed no signs of fleeing.

Her corruption still prowled at the edge of her mind, but its claws were lax.

She reached out and took it.

 


End file.
